This invention relates to appliances used for the prevention or rehabilitation of musculo-skeletal shoulder disorders, and more particularly describes a shoulder brace.
Shoulder dislocations, i.e., separation of the head of the humerus from the glenoid fossa, involve injury to the various soft tissues and the connective tissues usually supporting these components. Healing of such dislocations requires immobilization of the components, and for proper long-term healing, adequate support and possible range of motion limitations may be required to permit proper tissue repair and reconstruction.
Various devices and appliances have been described previously which attempt to solve the problem of providing support while at the same time permitting restricted movement to promote healing.
Coleman, U.S. Pat. No. 4,644,939, describes a device which guides the humerus upward along a longitudinal axis, but which also restricts elevation of the humerus beyond horizontal and opposes both anterior and posterior rotation.
Various other devices are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,906,944, 3,499,441, 4,302,849, and 4,862,878. Although these various devices are directed at providing shoulder support, they do not allow support during the full range of motions possible for the shoulder. Instead, these devices either (1) restrict certain movements to a xe2x80x9csafe zonexe2x80x9d of movement, or (2) provide support (e.g., stabilizing force) in certain positions and incomplete support during other ranges of motion.
Harding et al., J. Musculoskeletal Med., June:54-58 (1997) describes the limitations of known shoulder support devices for treating anterior shoulder stability. In particular, there remains to be designed a brace which maintains stability of the joint between the humerus and glenoid fossa (xe2x80x9cgleno-humeral jointxe2x80x9d stability) throughout the range of motions in order to allow healing during adequate functioning of the joint. In other words, it is desirable to provide gleno-humeral joint stability while allowing full range of motion and preventing hyper mobility or hyper extensions during normal movement.
Braces which limit or restrict full range of motion (ROM) do not allow proper healing throughout those restricted ranges. In contrast, braces which allow motion fail to provide joint stability, particularly anterior instability during abduction, external rotation and extension movements.
A device has now been discovered that provides full range of motion at the same time that gleno-humeral joint stability is maintained, including abduction, external rotation and extension.